Murang’a Governor Irungu Kang’ata has denied claims he included names of his former Senate staff members in a compensation petition as relatives of those who perished in the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines incident.
The governor is in the spotlight over his role in the compensation case against American plane manufacturer Boeing and the airline company.
In exposé aired by NTV on Wednesday, two of Kang’ata's former staff members in the Senate between 2017 and 2022, Davis Mburu Karanja and Peter Njuguna, alongside alleged associates Jane Wairimu and John Kunyia, implicated the governor in a fraudulent scheme.
They said they cannot understand why the governor included their names in a petition purporting to be members of families of those who perished in the incident, yet they had not lost anyone in the tragedy.
The petition, received by the Senate on June 19, 2019, asked the House to press the government so it could expedite issuance of certificates so that the next of kin could pursue compensation.
In the petition, eight individuals were listed as having lost relatives. However, they had neither lost anyone nor were aware of their names being in the list of next of kin of the victims.
Davis Mburu Karanja, who had been employed as the senator's coordinator for Maragua constituency, said he learnt about the petition through the Internet.
“When we were looking at my name on the Internet, we found that my name was appearing in the list of the families that had lost members of the plane air incident,” Davis said.
“When I heard that the Ethiopian airline had been paid, I decided to find out more about the case. So one night, I typed my name and the phone number in a link that had been provided. That was when I saw my name appearing in there."
"There is a certain link. There was a petition about the Ethiopian air incident where I am appearing together with other staff members who I worked with in the Senate. It showed I was affected by the loss of the people who perished in the incident," he said.
However, in a statement on Thursday, May 8, Kang'ata denied any wrongdoing and clarified the status of compensation for real victims.
"All real victims whom we represented in the United States got paid, and none have complained. None of the eight mentioned were compensated. This is a 2019 issue that was duly crossed, and all compensation relating to my clients (Kenyan victims) was duly paid," he said.
Kang'ata insists that the plot did not confer any personal gain to him or his former staff.
"My Senate debate on the issue did not confer any gain either to myself or the purported staff. I will continue using my legal skills for Kenyans successfully, including in the US and wherever else," Kang'ata responded.
Kang'ata was responding to an exposé done by NTV that revealed that American lawyers had placed an advertisement in newspapers in May 2019, seeking to partner with Kenyan advocates to pursue compensation for Kenyan victims.
